


Infinitesimal

by sibley (ferns)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cisco Ramon Becomes Vibe, Cisco Ramon-centric, Gen, Trans Cisco Ramon, Villains, superpowers and how to have them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24704233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: The particle accelerator explodes, and Cisco is among hundreds who tender their resignations to Dr. Harrison Wells.He gets a new job at Mercury Labs relatively quickly. It's nice. Good coworkers, even if some of them are a little weird. Good boss, even if she's strict. Good pay, even if he doesn't always feel like he deserves it after helping someone destroy half the city and ruin people's lives. So overall, it's pretty good.Well. Except for all the supervillains suddenly trying to recruit him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Infinitesimal

**Author's Note:**

> Right off the bat I want to say that this makes no sense with the timeline of the Flash post-Barry-coma, but luckily we can pretend that since Cisco wasn't around to do stuff the actual canon went way differently, especially because Cisco was really a driving force behind Barry going out as the Flash in the first place even if it was all according to Eobard's plan all along.
> 
> [ **CW:** this one is a lot less dark than the premise would imply. Still, warnings for one instance of past unintentional misgendering, descriptions of blood from mouth/nose/etc bleeding, nongraphic escriptions of headaches and seizures, stalking (in a sense), attempted kidnapping, government surveillance, and a bit of body horror.]

The particle accelerator explodes, and Cisco is among hundreds who tender their resignations to Dr. Harrison Wells.

Caitlin doesn’t leave. She’s loyal like that. Cisco could’ve been loyal like that, too, and the moment he tells Dr. Wells that he’s leaving is the first moment his world shifts blue and he feels a hint of what he could possibly be if he stays.

And, well, that’s new, but it’s not new enough to convince him of anything because it’s definitely just a hallucination brought on by stress. So Cisco goes back to his apartment and sits on the edge of his bed and wonders if he should make an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Cisco doesn’t, but he does call Dante. He doesn’t pick up, but that’s okay. Cisco leaves him a message.

When he goes to sleep that night, his dreams of lightning and vibrations that shake the earth are tinted blue, and he doesn’t remember any of them when he wakes up.

The next day, Cisco submits his resume to Mercury Labs. He half hopes they won’t accept it, but deep down in his heart of hearts he knows they will. That _should_ make him happy. He should want to have a job and actually be able to support himself so he doesn’t, you know, starve to death. 

But he doesn’t know if he wants to do what he did before. Of course the explosion wasn’t his fault, but there’s still some guilt there over all the _what-ifs._ More than that, though, Cisco feels like he’s stuck in place, like going to work for Mercury Labs will just keep him tied down.

Despite that, when they tell him they’d be happy to hire him, he accepts. It’s probably all in his imagination anyway. He starts a week from Monday. It’ll be fine. Won’t it?

Dr. McGee is nice enough. Strict, but no stricter than Dr. Wells was. She wants results, Cisco understands that, but she also wants them to be safe, which apparently means mandatory evacuation drills. They never had those at STAR. But then again, STAR Labs was the first place Cisco had worked since graduating college that wasn’t retail, so maybe this was the norm everywhere else.

Even with the differences, it’s nice. Dr. McGee respects him, and as long as he meets his deadlines she mostly lets him work at his own pace. The health plan is great, meaning it covers his hormones and any future surgeries—not that he’s planning any, going under the knife once was enough. There are a couple other former STAR employees in his lab, and while they were never really friends there’s a sense of camaraderie between them all. They’re the _survivors._

Caitlin calls him, over and over again, and Cisco doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to hear whatever it is she has to say to him about Ronnie and what he did. He knows it’s cowardly. But he can’t help it. He just can’t face her after everything. (Christ, he hasn’t even said he’s _sorry_ more than once. How messed up is that?)

The first time he sees the future properly and painfully is in that lab. He sees Caitlin calling him half an hour before she actually does. It’s terrifying. He picks up his phone to check the time and the world spins blue and for a moment he can hear his ringtone and when he snaps back to the present the only other person in the lab is staring at him, eyes wide, and Cisco feels something wet on his upper lip.

“Migraine,” he manages to get out before trying to stand up and falling flat on his face, slipping on a bit of the blood from his nose that dripped onto the floor.

Somehow, he convinces Dr. Dubrovny that while telling Dr. McGee that this is the reason he’s going home early is okay, it’s not an emergency and he doesn’t have to go to the hospital. He’s pretty sure he babbles something about having the flu, or something about fluctuating atmospheric pressures, or something about a bad reaction to pain medication. Somehow, he manages to get home in one piece.

As soon as he does, Cisco buries his face in his pillow and screams into it, long and loud, and he only stops when the lightbulb in the lamp he has plugged in next to his bed literally explodes.

That’s about when he figures out that something weird is definitely going on.

That’s also when he decides that he’s going to try to ignore it to see if it goes away.

(Because _that_ always works, right?)

* * *

The first one comes not long after that.

Cisco thinks he reacts with the appropriate amount of abject terror that comes from a seven-foot-tall man in a black and white three-piece suit appearing in a burst of smoke in his fucking apartment, but apparently said seven-foot-tall man doesn’t think so, because he clears his throat several times while he waits for Cisco to stop screaming.

“You have a lot of power,” he says instead of introducing himself. “But it’s power you don’t want. I can help you with that.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Cisco chokes out, still trying to get over the shock of a massive man with what looks like _goddamn_ _fangs_ showing up in the middle of his apartment completely unannounced, apparently to talk about Cisco’s potential like he’s the teacher of a third-grade classroom. “Get the hell out of my house!”

The guy keeps talking, something about how Cisco could be a god or a mortal if he so chose, how this guy could make everything happen for him, how all he has to do is make a little deal and everything will work out exactly how Cisco wants it forever, and Cisco knows enough to surmise that he _definitely_ shouldn’t trust this guy.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” he says finally, hugging himself. He really hopes this guy takes it well, but something tells him he won’t. “I’m pretty good with keeping my immortal soul intact, actually. Sorry, man.”

The man (demon? The devil? Is Cisco talking to the actual, honest to god _devil?_ As in Satan himself?) frowns deeply at him before smiling, baring his fangs again. He claps his hands together and then he’s gone, leaving only a pair of footprints scorched into the floorboards. But even though he’s gone, Cisco can still hear him whispering into his ear—

 _“I’ll get yours one day, Francisco Ramon. I get_ everyone’s _one day.”_

Cisco updates the security system in his apartment and tries not to think about it even though he’s pretty sure he should be having a mental breakdown or at least a crisis of faith.

The weirdest part is that he actually succeeds.

* * *

So. It turns out being psychic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Cisco sees phone calls that never happen and test results that come out exactly as predicted, jumbled half-conversations between his bosses and full speeches in languages he doesn’t know from halfway around the world. He texts Dante to get a ride to work instead of walking and is rewarded with confusion, then forgets to tell Dr. McGee she’s going to slip down a flight of stairs before he watches it happen in real time.

It’s exhausting. How the hell is he supposed to know what’s going to come true and what’s not? It’s all just data he has no way of processing. Streams of thought that either end or double back on themselves, delivering crushing headaches with them and no reassurances that things are going to get better. Cisco feels like he’s going to lose his mind. Or worse, his job, since the more headaches he has the less work he can get done.

He needs this job. Dr. McGee is a good boss, but she can’t help the ruined reputation of the majority of the STAR Labs engineers. Sometimes he wonders if he should reach back out to Caitlin. Tell her he can put a good word in with Dr. McGee. Get her a nice new job with a good paycheck and tangible safety measures. As far as he knows, she could be running on fumes right about now.

He never does, though. Cisco’s pretty sure Caitlin would rather take a job anywhere else, at least as long as he was still working there. He deserves her hatred, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

* * *

Cisco keeps his eyes low as he pushes into Dr. McGee’s office, hoping she’s not about to start scolding him over accidentally setting himself on fire earlier that day. It’s nothing that would’ve gotten him so much as a second glance back at STAR, but here it would be his second fire-related strike, and he’d _really_ like to actually keep his job.

“I’m really sorry, Dr. McGee,” he begins before the door has even had the chance to close, only to look up when he hears her clear her throat and instantly fall silent, mouth gaping open.

“Ah, _you_ must be Mr. Ramon,” Lex Luthor— _the_ Lex Luthor—says, offering his hand for Cisco to shake. Cisco accepts it, feeling numb. There’s no way this is actually happening. Lex Luthor _himself_ is not talking to him. Shaking his hand. Anything. This is _not_ happening. “Dr. McGee was just telling me about you. She said your advancements in assistive technology are putting my handpicked staff members to shame.”

Cisco’s eyes shoot to Dr. McGee, who’s watching Luthor with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. She nods stiffly at him when she sees him looking at her, and it feels genuine, but she’s clearly pissed off. He really hopes it’s not because of him. Then he realizes Luthor is waiting for a response. “Oh! Uh, yeah, I—I was a part of the STAR Labs team, with the particle accelerator that went up a few months ago… this feels like a way of helping to make up for that stuff, you know?”

He’s rehearsed that answer a dozen times before, and he _knows_ it comes off flat even though it’s completely true. It’s too casual of an answer for someone like Luthor, and not genuine enough to appeal to his emotional side, if he has one at all. Even if it is truly genuine. He probably should’ve said anything else. Talked about how he feels like the people in need of assistive devices of all kinds are an undervalued market in Central City or something. That would get the attention of a guy like Luthor, wouldn’t it?

To his surprise, Luthor smiles. It’s not a very nice smile. It seems kind of plastic. Cisco’s pretty sure he’s just reading too much into it because he’s nervous, though. That’s gotta be it. “You know, I think Lexcorp could use someone like you, Mr. Ramon. Making a difference on a national scale is important to us.”

The reality of the situation sinks in. Cisco watches Dr. McGee twitch. No wonder she’s angry. Luthor’s trying to snipe him from right underneath her nose, and it’s not like there’s anything she can do about it. Lexcorp is huge, way bigger than Mercury Labs, and Luthor himself is somehow even bigger. There’s even talk of him potentially running for president within the next few years, though Cisco’s not totally sure how much he believes those rumors.

“Maybe that’s true, uh”—Cisco briefly wonders how he should address him. Sir? He seems like the kind of man who’d want to be called that. But that’s a little weird. He’s not, like, the mayor or anything… just saying _Mr. Luthor_ is probably fine, right?—“Mr. Luthor, but I’m pretty happy where I am now,” he says honestly. “I mean, my whole life is in Central City. And… I like working for Dr. McGee.”

Dr. McGee’s looking at him now with the closest he’s ever seen her get to a smile. He smiles hesitantly back at her. He _does_ like working for her. She pays him well, yeah, but the work environment is safe and he gets a lot of time off to do what he wants and he actually enjoys coming to work. He doesn’t know if he would if he had to work at Lexcorp, especially since they don’t have any outreach buildings in either of the twins.

Something tightens behind Luthor’s eyes, but his carved smile doesn’t slip. “Integrity and loyalty. More traits we need more of. If you ever change your mind…” He presses a business card into Cisco’s hand, then nods to Dr. McGee. “I’ll see myself out.”

Cisco’s shoulders drop when the door closes again. It feels like he just ran a marathon. Did any of that really just happen? He looks back at Dr. McGee for confirmation. She’s bracing herself against her desk, shaking her head. “I… you…” She sighs. “You’re a very valued employee here, you know. Now go back to your workshop, Mr. Ramon. Try not to light yourself on fire again.”

Cisco smiles. Yeah, that’s about what he was expecting when he walked in here.

* * *

Lex Luthor does not give up, but he’s not the only one suddenly hounding Cisco for time and attention. However, he _does_ seem to be one of the few who actually has his email address. The only other people who do are freaking Hartley Rathaway (one of the few Cisco actually responds to, since it contains an apology—though it’s honestly not one Cisco accepts—and a question about whether or not he had any experiences at STAR Labs that would be helpful in a lawsuit) and somebody called Kuttler who somehow manages to keep emailing him talking about making his life better even after he blocks the address. Cisco ignores them and keeps marking their emails as spam.

He doesn’t even bother politely responding to Luthor’s emails after awhile. He just deletes them and moves on while hoping the guy can’t tell how creeped out he is by him. The last thing he needs is for someone like _Lex Luthor_ to think Cisco believes he’s better than him. Because he definitely doesn’t. No way. He’s just genuinely happy with where he’s working. And he doesn’t want to get involved in anything shady like what he’s positive Luthor is up to, even if that shadiness is just more employee poaching.

Cisco does end up moving to a different apartment, though. Not because of the nice raise that Dr. McGee gave him after he turned down Luthor’s offer the first time, even if that _definitely_ helped and he is _very_ grateful to her for that, or because he’s scared of Luthor finding out where he lives, or even because he’s still finding soot from when that giant lunatic showed up in his apartment and tried to make a deal with him.

It’s actually because of the letter.

It showed up on the little counter next to his front door with a real wax seal shaped like a skull and everything. He’d opened it mostly out of curiosity, and partially out of the belief that it pretty much _had_ to be the invitation to the Halloween party his landlord sometimes threw, even though it was very much the middle of March, and that he’d probably just forgotten about bringing it inside. Not that he could’ve ever anticipated that it was an invitation written in formal handwriting to join whatever the _fuck_ the “Brotherhood of Evil” was.

It could’ve just been a kind of strange prank from someone, but Cisco ran the letter through his paper shredder before setting it on fire anyway, and started looking around for apartments on the other side of his city with the awkward excuse to his landlord and neighbors that he just wanted to live closer to where he worked to save money on gas.

Now he just does his best not to think about the letter, even when a similar one shows up outside his new apartment right before he moves in. This one he actually sits down and drafts a response to while hoping that if it is the real deal (even if he isn’t sure what the deal _is)_ then the sender or senders won’t be offended that he typed it instead of writing it out. He’s as polite as possible in saying that he is perfectly happy with the occupation and lifestyle that he has now, so while he appreciates their efforts, he’s going to have to pass up on their offer, and please don’t send another letter because he won’t even open it. 

Then he realizes he has no way to send it since there wasn’t an address on the original letter and he can’t remember there being one on the first one, either, so he just puts it outside his door and leaves it all night and hopes that it disappears by the time it’s morning because it’s on the way to the right people. Which it does, because it is. 

Of course, Cisco never realizes that _nobody_ says _no_ to the _Brotherhood of Evil,_ a very much real and threatening—if currently not very large—group, so them deciding to actually leave him alone after he turns them down was a sign of just how powerful he really is, even if he still hasn’t figured out how to stop his nose from bleeding every time he wakes up from a suspiciously realistic dream.

He just knows no more letters come after that incident and that he really, _really_ hopes it will stay that way forever.

* * *

For a minute after Cisco opens his eyes, he’s convinced that the power has gone out. Sure, his bedroom is dark when he pulls the blinds, but it’s _pitch black._ As dark and empty as how he images standing in the vacuum of space would be. It’s silent, too. Central City is _never_ silent. No city truly is. There should be _something._ The flickering of lights outside his window or the sound of cars driving by. But instead there’s just eerie inky darkness.

“Wow,” someone says next to Cisco’s head, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. “You really need to lighten up.”

The second the voice says that, right as he spins around, a bright flash of light in the shape of a ball illuminates a pair of eyes and a disembodied hands behind him. Somehow, Cisco can tell that the eyes are smiling. “What the hell?”

“Oh, right. You’re sensitive, aren’t you?” The hands catch the light and compress it down into almost nothing until all that’s left is a dim red shine peeking out between their fingers. There’s a sound like somebody clicking their tongue from somewhere close to the eyes. They aren’t _glowing,_ per say. The whites are just flashing from the light. That’s all. “It’s a nice night, isn’t it? Perfect for the kind of guy who’d turn down the fucking _Brotherhood of Evil.”_

Cautiously, Cisco nods. He isn’t _scared._ Just surprised. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and no matter who this is, none of the rest of them have tried to hurt him. The closest they’ve come to it was the guy who just appeared in his apartment and made the whole thing smell like sulfur. And even he hadn’t so much as touched Cisco. This person bringing up the letter is unnerving, but he knows he’s safe. He has to be safe.

Somehow, he can hear that they’re smiling, even though no teeth gleam in the shadows the way the eyes are. “What do you think is in my hands?”

Cisco blinks and looks down at where he can still see the shining. “Uh. The light. Ball lightning or a bunch of LEDs that you glued together or just a flashlight bulb, or something. That’s what you’ve got in your hands.”

“Not quite.” The light winks out when the hands separate, but they’re still lit up well enough for him to see them. “There’s nothing in there, Cisco.” The least of his problems is that this guy knows his name, and enough to call him _Cisco_ at that, not just _Francisco,_ and it barely even registers as something to be alarmed over. “Nothing at all.”

After a long moment, Cisco shakes his head. “No. There’s always _something._ Even if it’s just the molecules that make up the air all vibrating together. There’s never really nothing even if you think there is. And light is just energy. Energy can change but it doesn’t disappear. There’s never _nothing._ Never.”

The eyes go wide, and then the voice starts laughing, so loud it’s almost grating and with a weird buzzing pitched twisted through it. The laughter seems genuine, though, and not really cruel or mocking. Like they just heard a hilarious joke that Cisco wasn’t in on. One of their white gloved hands reaches up and snaps its fingers, and then—

Cisco’s eyes blink open and he shoots upright in the chair he suddenly finds himself sitting in. He’s at his desk in his apartment, even though he’s positive he went to sleep in his bed instead of dozing off there. There’s a sickly-sweet taste in his mouth, and the tips of his fingers have some black and white paint smudged on them, like he’d been touching a wall that hadn’t completely dried yet.

Three days later he has a blackout at work, because of _course_ he does, and he ends up in the hospital getting questioned on how long he’s been having them, since apparently Dr. Dubrovny has been snitching on him to Dr. McGee whenever he has what he’s been calling migraines. There’s something on the news about a situation in France. Paris, he’s pretty sure. Honestly he can’t bring himself to care, since now he has a ton of paperwork to go through and a boss to reassure that he isn’t dying.

The only thing that really bothers him about the whole deal, since it was probably just a weird dream, is that there’s the sound of hoofbeats echoing through his skull for a week straight afterward. It’s definitely not just his ears ringing. It’s really distinct. Like there’s a recording of a horse race in his brain. It’s pretty weird.

Ah, well. He still has bigger things to worry about.

* * *

“You’re Francisco Ramon, right?”

Cisco hums an affirmative, rotating his blueprints to label something new. It doesn’t sound like one of his coworkers and it’s definitely not Dr. McGee, but there are a bunch of people working at Mercury Labs who he doesn’t know, especially interns. “You can just call me Cisco if you like.”

“Of course, Cisco. My name’s Maxwell Lord. Did Ms. McGee tell you I was coming?”

Cisco finally looks up, and yeah, it is in fact Maxwell Lord standing next to him with one eyebrow raised and a small smile on his face, hand outstretched. He laughs nervously and wipes his suddenly sweaty hands on his pants. “Oh. Um. No, she didn’t. Nice to meet you, Mr. Lord. Sorry I’m not shaking your hand, there was some, uh… oil…”

“That’s fine.” Lord lets his hand drop. “It _was_ pretty last-minute. And I doubt she appreciated my offering you a job.”

Cisco bites back a sigh. Of _course_ that was why he was here. Just like Luthor. He briefly wonders if he knows how lucky he is to even be allowed inside the building, let alone actually in his lab. Lord is notorious, sure, but he’s no Luthor, and Cisco’s reasonably certain that Dr. McGee could eat him alive if he gave her a reason to. (And to be completely honest? Cisco’s pretty sure he would pay to see something like that.)

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says as politely as possible, “but I’m really happy with the job I have now. I like working for Mercury Labs, I think Dr. McGee is a good boss, and I like living in Central.” He also likes getting his hormones covered by insurance, which Lord definitely does _not_ offer. At least _Luthor_ did. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

“Are you sure?” Lord’s little smirk gets wider, and there’s a weird pressure at Cisco’s forehead and a tugging sensation in his gut. He kind of wants to change his mind. Which is weird. He didn’t even want to do that with Luthor, who would probably be a _way_ better employer than Lord. He doesn’t even know what he’d do if he went to work for Lord. At least Luthor already employs engineers. So why does he want to say yes? It’s ridiculous, so he ignores it.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry, Mr. Lord.” He smiles apologetically. The longer Lord stands there, the more Cisco feels on edge. He just feels _off._ Maybe it’s intuition or maybe he’s about to have another one of his “migraines,” but whatever it is, Cisco doesn’t like it. “Maybe in a few years. I just really like working here. Maybe you should leave. I don’t think Dr. McGee knows you’re in here, does she?”

As it turns out, Dr. McGee does _not_ know that Lord is in the building, and the sheepish security guards who said they must have let him in without even noticing are happy to get back on her good side by escorting him off the premises. 

Cisco wishes things like this would stop happening more than he’s ever wanted anything else in his life.

* * *

After another few job offers, coming from Ted Kord and Ray Palmer, which are _much_ less pushy and cheerfully tell him to have a good day when he politely turns them down—over email, because they don’t show up at his job and try to harass him into joining their respective companies, so there are (thank god) still normal people out there in the world—Cisco allows himself to hope that the weirdness has stopped.

Yes, he’s still having his visions, but they’ve mostly subsided now, and they’re not accompanied by episodes of extreme vertigo since he started on some new medication he got after Dr. McGee told him that he could either go to the doctor and get himself taken care of once and for all or he could start looking for a new job with one of the many people he’d turned down. Caitlin has stopped calling him, too, so he’s managed to squash all of his guilt surrounding how he killed Ronnie into a little box deep down inside him.

So, all in all, things are really starting to look up!

It’s probably helped by the fact that there’s now suddenly a superhero running around Central City. Literally running. Most people don’t believe in them, but Cisco’s _positive_ they’re real. Most of it is just because it would mean that he wasn’t the only person who suddenly woke up one day with superpowers. And, well, he’s seen so much shit in the ten months since he stopped working for STAR Labs after the explosion that a superhero sprinting around at supersonic speeds would be a welcome change over guys teleporting into his bedroom to yell at him. Yeah, he’s definitely not over that.

Unfortunately, the reprieve is short-lived, no matter how much Cisco wishes it weren’t.

He didn’t usually go drinking on weekends. Alcohol was fun but since he didn’t know too many people who weren’t scientists he didn’t really have a thriving social life that meant he _wanted_ to go hang out at bars. Sure, sometimes he’d head to the place that had been down the street from his old apartment so he could see Dante and bother him, but that was really the extent outside of events like going-away parties and the like. Last time he’d had a night out it had been with a couple other people who worked at Mercury Labs to celebrate a patent deal getting completed, and while it had been fun, it had also been somewhat awkward since he didn’t _really_ know most of the people he’d been out with.

Still, its been a long week, and Cisco feels like he’s needed a break for some time now, so around lunchtime he’d resolved to get some drinks at a new place and try to make some connections and talk to people (which would have been _much_ easier if he’d just gone to a con or something, but the soonest one wasn’t until July) when work was over, and when it’s time to clock out he keeps that little promise to himself and sets out in a random direction until he sees one that looks decent enough.

It’s dimly lit enough that he has to squint, and the guy behind the counter stares at him a little when he sits down behind the bar, but it’s not a big deal. The specialty drinks all have vaguely threatening names, so Cisco gets some of the first familiar-looking beer brand he sees. His mission to talk to somebody new is quickly a success, though, because a woman sits down next to him and gets one of the specialties with a wink at the bartender like they’re old friends. Hell, maybe they are.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” she says, reaching out to shake his hand. When he does, he notices that she’s got several rings on each of her fingers. “You new to Central? I’m Lisa.”

Cisco shakes his head. “Lived here since I was a kid,” he says truthfully. “I work pretty close by and I just moved to be closer so I thought I’d give myself a break and check out a new place and meet some new people. And I’m Cisco.”

“Oh, where do you work?” The bartender passes her the drink she ordered and she bumps it against his beer bottle in a mini cheers. “I’m doing freelance stuff, jewelry appraisal and things like that.”

Cisco wasn’t totally sure you _could_ do freelance jewelry appraisal, but hey—it wasn’t his job, so what did he know? “Mercury Labs. I’m one of their engineers. Right now I’m mostly collaborating with some other people on building assistive technology. Less expensive wheelchairs and prosthetics and communication devices and things like that…” He trails off and looks away. “I guess it’s not that interesting.”

“Sounds interesting to me.” Lisa smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. He tries not to linger on it. “I did a little bit of engineering work after I graduated. Mostly just picked up some things from the people around me. Have you worked there long?”

“About a year,” Cisco says evasively. She seems nice, but the particle accelerator destroyed the lives of so many people that even though he respects the feelings of anybody who wants the former and current staff of STAR Labs dead in a ditch somewhere, he doesn’t feel comfortable telling her when he barely knows her and he’s in a bar where he doesn’t have any friends. “I like it. Good pay, good boss, good coworkers. It’s fine.”

“Cheers to that, then.” She bumps her glass against his bottle again. “Hey, do you want to come back to my place after this? My brother and I are staying together, but he’s not home tonight. Spending time with his friend or something. We’d have the whole place to ourselves.”

Cisco hesitates even though he’s not sure why. She’s pretty and she seems nice, and it’s been way too long since he got laid, and usually that would be more than enough to make him spend the night with a near-stranger. It had been in the past. And even if they hadn’t been the most enjoyable experiences the majority of the time, that hadn’t stopped him before, either. Neither had the preliminary awkward and often terrifying coming-out conversation that he always made sure took place somewhere with a lot of witnesses. But something just feels a little too… off. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve got work pretty early tomorrow morning.” He pulls a pen out of his pocket and scribbles his number down on a napkin and holds it out. Probably not too harmful to just give out his number, right? It’s not like he’s writing his home address and whether or not he’s ever had any organ diseases on his forehead. “I’d love to get to know you better, though, so…”

Lisa accepts his napkin with a smile and a promise to call him soon before she walks off without paying for her drink to sit by an older guy who looks a bit like her—the brother she mentioned, maybe? His chest clenches a little and his stomach dips as his anxiety suddenly spikes. He kind of regrets giving her his number now. He _really_ does, actually, even though he’s not completely sure why. 

Cisco’s standing before he even fully realizes what he’s doing. This is wrong. Everything inside him is screaming that something is _wrong._

He means to head over and ask if he can have the napkin back even though that’ll _totally_ end badly, but for some reason one of his hands slips downward with a sensation like plunging his hand into jello as there’s a flicker of blue from the bartop and a matching one from the other side of the room next to Lisa.

When he looks down, the napkin is in front of him.

Freaked out, he pays quickly, stuffs the little paper into his pocket, and leaves without looking in her direction, all while resolving to never go back to Saints and Sinners again.

* * *

The next one to appear in his goddamn apartment is the person in yellow.

Cisco’s listening to an audiobook while he works on a side project of his, a personal piece of assistive technology made out of the shell of a handful of different wind-up toys, so he doesn’t hear when the person comes into his apartment and looms ominously behind him. He doesn’t need to, however. The breeze from it rustles his papers and there’s a sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach accompanied by a sudden spike in head pain.

He turns around fast and puts his fists up. None of the other ones have hurt him, and he’s pretty sure none of them _can,_ which is great, but he’s not taking any chances, even if the sum total of his fighting experience involves getting the shit kicked out of him daily in middle school and watching Dante experience the same. (Both of them always needed Armando to come bail them out. _Nobody_ in their neighborhood messed with Armando, and for good reason. Sometimes Cisco found himself wondering what Armando would’ve thought about all of this.)

They’re all… blurry. Like the superhero that’s been running around. But there’s no way they’re the same person. Cisco hasn’t been saved by the other guy, but he’s not an idiot. On the blog that one person has every single person who has had an encounter with them describes them as wearing red. Sure, they may just have a change of clothes, since this person is dressed head to toe in mustard yellow, but it feels _different._ The people the new guy running around has been spotted by report a feeling of safety. This person, on the other hand, is _definitely_ trying to project as much malevolence as is physically possible into the air.

“Hey,” Cisco says. He’s surprised his voice isn’t shaking. On the other hand, why would it be? None of these freaks have actually done any damage outside of that one who burned his floor. This will be fine. It has to be fine. Even if it feels like those glowing red eyes are staring straight into his soul and keeping him in place like a bug on a pinboard. “I’ve had enough of this shit. Get out before I call the police.”

“You don’t need the police,” the person says, and oh, god, that is _awful_ to listen to. They’ve got to be vibrating their vocal cords or something. It sounds like they’ve put their voice in a blender. His nose starts bleeding again. Goddamnit. He is too tired to deal with this. “What you need is a teacher. Someone who can help you.”

“Look,” Cisco says through gritted teeth, trying not to get too much blood in his mouth because that’s disgusting, “I’m getting really tired of people waltzing into my life or breaking into my house or trying to steal me from my job or _anything_ and promising me they can make everything better or whatever the hell. So why don’t you just get the hell _out!”_

What he means to do is make a shooing motion with his hand in a weak attempt to usher the extremely blurry intruder out the door. What happens _instead_ is that something _comes out of his hand and fires at the goddamn guy_ who immediately vanishes, running straight through the wall without breaking it. Which is good, because that means he gets more time to himself to freak out about something coming out of his damn hand like he’s in a freaking movie.

This is definitely getting worse. The visions were one thing. One scary thing, but one thing. This is different. Whatever happened at the bar with the number he gave to Lisa… whatever is happening now with a _blast_ that fired out of his hand… this is worse. And scarier. 

But not scary enough to tell anybody else about it, that’s for sure. And not scary enough to go looking for _another_ new apartment, even if he’s getting paid enough that his wallet can probably actually handle it.

Even though he feels like he’s being watched no matter where he goes.

* * *

The first one that chills him to the bone is the military man. General Wade Eiling.

Cisco doesn’t know the full story.

What he does know is that forty-five minutes after he arrived at work, checked in, and headed up to his space after getting coffee and saying hi to the interns, a goddamn military general and a couple of other people (soldiers? Cisco really doesn’t know a whole lot about the United States military. Or any military for that matter) arrived outside of the Mercury Labs building that he worked in and demanded entry.

The security guards refused them entry, which is pretty gutsy, and also potentially illegal. Again, Cisco doesn’t know very much about how the United States military works. According to the guards, they’d been specifically requesting to see _him,_ which was kind of terrifying. Cisco was almost positive he hadn’t done anything to get the attention of the government. 

He’d asked if he needed to schedule a few nights at a hotel, but Dr. McGee had assured him that if they _could_ have taken him from his apartment, he would have been gone before he ever had time to wake up. If General Eiling wanted him that badly, he would have taken him, not let himself get chased away by security guards for a company that most definitely couldn’t stand up to the might of the United States government. That had been a little reassuring at the time, but now, pacing back and forth in his bedroom, Cisco definitely does not feel reassured. Not in the slightest.

He wishes he had a way to know if they were planning on trying to contact him again. He wishes—

And then he wonders if it’s possible to try to have a vision of something on purpose.

He has them by accident all the time, and he’s done it intentionally before, just not with a target in mind. How hard could it be to translate that into a specific person? To _specifically_ General Wade Eiling, who came to his work and probably terrified half the employees out of their minds because it’s never a good thing when the army shows up at your door.

Focus.

If he can just concentrate on Eiling or something… maybe he can get this to work. Maybe he can figure out why he wants him. Hell, maybe he’ll even be able to figure out why _everyone_ seems to want him. That’d be really convenient.

Focus.

All he needs to do is focus, and… and he should be able to…

He should…

It’s like sticking his face into a bowl of slush. He’s never really dwelled on it before, except for when he’d done that _thing_ at the bar. The sensation of pushing through some kind of barrier usually happens so quickly and suddenly that there’s no time to think about it. Now Cisco makes the conscious choice to keep going. To push himself deeper. 

It’s like sledding down a hill he’d previously tripped and fallen down. The momentum takes his breath away and for a heart-stopping second he worries that this was a mistake, because how could he _possibly_ think he has control over the spiral of blue-white and black around him? He tries to reach out and grab something—anything—that can stop his descent, but before his fingers can make contact he—

The only way to describe it is to compare it to getting washed ashore by the tide, only instead of rolling into the sand Cisco’s feet easily touch the blue-tinted ground and he takes a long, deep breath as he realizes he’s done exactly what he set out to do.

Mostly, anyway.

He only saw the security footage Dr. McGee provided him with, but it’s still easy to recognize Eiling’s face. He’s shouting something into a phone, audio cutting in and out like there’s a bad connection in Cisco’s brain.

_“—I am not just going to—will refuse to—the project is too important now to—to—I have served this country for—my men have—more days—results—I—”_

Cisco tries to move closer. He tries to strengthen the connection or _whatever_ it is that’s letting him see and hear this. Or at least letting him hear _part_ of it, since that’s kind of the problem. He needs to _know_ why this guy was looking for him. He needs to know why _everyone_ has been trying to be all buddy-buddy with him, from Lex freaking Luthor to the United States military to the so-called Brotherhood of Evil.

For a moment, Cisco reaches out to touch the cord to the phone in the man’s hand. For a moment, he can almost feel it, or at least feel _something._ Like there’s the ghost of a cord there instead of the real thing. Like touching all the signals that traveled inside of it and not the plastic casing. For a moment, it’s like he’s really there in the room with him. 

Then his legs go out from under him and his head feels like it’s going to split in two down the middle and the blood gushes from his nose and he’s blinking open his eyes to his too-bright apartment, the sunlight spilling in through the window far too bright for a typical Central City evening even in June.

He tries to stand but his legs don’t respond. His vision is blurred and there’s so much blood coming from his nose that he can feel it coating his skin, thick and sticky and unpleasant. There’s blood in his mouth, too, and it bubbles when he tries to breathe.

Cisco barely manages to hit the button on his phone to call emergency services before he blacks out.

* * *

Cisco takes the Topamax he’s prescribed alongside the vertigo meds he was already on, and is blissfully free of visions and portals and blasts for the next month. He’s pretty sure it isn’t because of the medication, though, since his dreams still filter blue oh-so-slightly at times. It feels more like his body just wore itself out. But the meds help with his headaches and he hasn’t had any more seizures (yeah, turns out Dr. Dubrovny wasn’t exaggerating. He does actually get those) so it’s a win.

Nothing happens with Eiling. Cisco’s still on edge, and there have been lulls before, long ones even, but it really does feel like it’s starting to be safe out there for him. Well. Maybe that isn’t the right way to put it, because he’s kinda never safe out there. Now it’s just safer for him to be in his own body with himself. Or something. 

He’s also considering going to a therapist, because he’s just now gotten a break from the rush of _everything_ to have enough breathing room to think about how messed-up his life is now. 

(Which is a little ironic, considering the city itself seems to be getting crazier by the day. “The Flash” is running around even more than usual, still with no _real_ proof of his existence. There are sightings of even _more_ people with strange abilities. Still people without much proof of their existence. And most importantly, still no one like him.)

He’s just thinking about how much he likes being normal when he walks out of his apartment building only to be immediately grabbed and manhandled into a van by two heavily armed men in black tactical gear.

Most people would assume they were about to die.

Cisco hasn’t been like most people since the particle accelerator exploded and he found out he was one of the pieces that needed to be cleaned up. 

There’s a woman with dark skin and close-cropped hair waiting for him in the van (or, no, it’s less like a van and more like a heavily armored limousine), legs crossed and fingers tapping against the Manila folder resting in her lap. She doesn’t hold out her hand for Cisco to shake. At least the guys boxing him in on either side aren’t restraining him any further.

He really hates that this is something he can find the silver lining in.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Ramon,” the woman says. 

“Cool,” Cisco sighs. “Can you drive me to work?”

That doesn’t catch her off-guard like he was kind of expecting it to, but the corner of her mouth does quirk up into the beginning of something close to a smile. “I’m here to present a job opportunity to you, Mr. Ramon. I suggest you listen to it.”

It’s not smart to piss these people off. Cisco’s been genuinely afraid for his life because of them before. He’s sure that whoever this woman is, she could order snipers to take out him and his entire family before he’d have time to blink.

But. 

_But._

Cisco is _tired._ He is _so_ tired. He is unendingly tired. He’s so tired there’s a familiar buildup of pain behind his eyes and a blur to the world when he opens his eyes again after squeezing them shut. He’s so tired that he’s going to make what he knows is a stupid mistake. 

“Everyone wants to make me a job offer,” he says bitterly. “The answer is _no._ I _like_ where I work now! The pay is good. The employees are good. The insurance is good. The work I’m doing is good. And nobody fucking tried to _make me work there_ because they think it’s cool that I sometimes get seizures and see the fucking _future!”_

Angry, he automatically clenches his fists, and the van shudders to a stop. The woman doesn’t look alarmed, per say, but she definitely doesn’t look happy. Cisco isn’t even sure if that was his fault, but he takes it as a cue to keep going.

“I don’t know why everyone wants to—to fucking _own me,_ or whatever the hell, but I’m _sick of it.”_ He stands and almost falls after hitting his head on the ceiling, which definitely lessens the impact of his words, but he doesn’t _care._ “You can try to do whatever the hell you want to me. But you’re not going to, because for some reason you and everyone else is too scared of me to try anything. So _let me out of here._ Right fucking _now._ Or I will do whatever it is you’re all so afraid of and send this entire car to hell.”

Cisco is only aware his nose is bleeding when he sees the woman’s eyes follow the droplets of blood as they splatter on the carpeted floor of the van. He wipes his face with the back of his hand and it leaves a red streak behind. The woman watches him reach over to wrench the door open.

The woman holds something out. A little piece of paper as thick as a business card. It has a logo on it, one that looks like an eye. The same one is stitched into the uniforms of the people who dragged him from the doorstep of his building to the car. The ones still sitting completely silently. The ones that could break his neck if they wanted to. Those ones. Voice measured, she says, “You don’t scare me, Mr. Ramon.”

Cisco clenches his fists again and doesn’t take the card, glaring as hard as he can because he knows they’ll break his wrist if he tries to throw a punch. The blue filter is back. He can’t say he welcomes it. But it feels better than it ever has before. As natural as breathing. “Then why am I leaving?”

The walk from where he ended up to Mercury Labs only takes a few minutes longer than it would to go from his house to work, anyway.

* * *

Cisco still takes the meds. Why the hell wouldn’t he? They _help._ He still hasn’t had another seizure, which his doctor says is great news and means the Topamax is working as designed without them needing to look for another medication for the time being. The seizures and the headaches were the worst part, anyway, and now that half of that is taken out of the equation, it feels _good,_ and the headaches are better on the medication too even if they aren’t gone.

He’s pretty sure his coworkers have noticed. Or at least some of them have. The new guy on the floor above him, Jason, asked Dr. Dubrovny about him during his lunch break—Cisco heard him through three closed doors—and had been surprised when he told him Cisco had been out sick a lot during the past year, because “he seems so active.” That had been nice. And even if the majority haven’t picked up on it, the sheer volume of stuff he’s turned in to Dr. McGee means _she’s_ noticed. 

He’s also pretty sure most people don’t feel like this when they get started on a new medication. Hell, taking stuff like antidepressants practically ruined both his life and Dante’s when they were in high school. Bad reactions to putting new shit in your system are common. But Cisco hasn’t had any of them yet, and considering how much everything else about his life has gone to shit, he _needs_ this one thing to be… okay. Not even good. Just okay. For his own sanity.

Especially since Caitlin has started calling him again.

Cisco can’t imagine _why._ He’d been happy when she stopped, as selfish as it was. Maybe it’s because it’s getting close to the anniversary of the explosion. Maybe that’s making her remember how much she rightfully hates Cisco for what he’d done to Ronnie. Maybe she’s calling to tell him that she’d secretly manifested abilities of her own, which was something he refuses to admit he’s fantasized about on more than one occasion—not in a weird way. In a lonely way. A way that just didn’t want to be the only one dealing with this shit on a regular basis.

He hasn’t picked up. Even if he does want to know why she’s calling him. He hasn’t picked up. Because he’s still just as selfish as he was when the particle accelerator blew and he let her fiancé die.

The thing he will remember most clearly later down the line is that she was trying to call him when he sees Lisa again.

She’s walking down the sidewalk across the street heading toward him. Or… not _toward_ him, not really. He’s got no proof she’s even noticed he’s there. They’re just going in two different directions, and they’re going to end up with crossed paths if either one of them crosses the street to say hello. As it is, they’re going to find themselves on opposite sides of the street’s y-axis. The fixed points of not-quite-parallel planes.

She crosses the street, of course.

“Cisco!” She stops in front of him, blocking the path. Cisco glances over his shoulder, but the only person around is about a block back. No one will feel inconvenienced by them stopping to chat for at least a few minutes. “I haven’t seen you around, how’ve you been?”

“I’m alright,” he says evasively. No need to get into all of his bullshit with someone who was a near-stranger. At least she doesn’t seem to remember the… _thing_ he did with the napkin he gave her. Thinking about it like that made it sound weirder than it was. “Heading to work—um, at Mercury Labs, I forgot if I told you last time that’s where I work. Have you, uh, appraised any good jewelry lately?”

She laughs. Her hair looks a little different. Closer to brown than blond. Probably just the lighting. Or maybe she dyes it. It’s been weeks. He doesn’t know her. She can change her hair if she wants. “Not really. Actually, I’ve been doing some part-time work at a skating rink. The one in the mall.”

“Oh, cool,” Cisco says, not even registering the pun he's made because he’s too focused on not letting Lisa see that he has no idea which mall she’s talking about because the one closest to where they’re standing and therefore also to his apartment doesn’t have an ice rink. He bounces on his heels. The guy behind them is surely getting closer, and he really doesn’t want to be in somebody’s way. “It was nice to see you, but I’ve gotta get to work now, y’know?”

Lisa’s smile glitters in the sunshine. “Of course. I get it. I actually have work too.” Her gaze shifts over his shoulder. “Right, Mick?”

Cisco turns. The man who’d been walking behind them has stopped only about a foot behind him. He’s _huge,_ with muscles the size of Cisco’s head and burn scars marking up and down one side of him under the sleeveless white shirt he’s wearing. He smiles at Cisco. It’s not a very nice smile. It makes Cisco’s heart drop into the pit of his stomach.

While he’s looking back and trying not to freak out, Lisa comes too close, bumping him slightly from behind before grabbing onto his upper arm. “Why don’t you come with us?” She suggests. The smile on the man—Mick’s—face gets bigger. “You can help us out with a project we’ve been working on.”

Cisco tries to take a deep breath and swallow down the choking flood of anxiety (mixed with some tiny strains of relief that he didn’t end up going home with her that night at the bar). There are a lot of things that could be happening right now. He needs to stay calm. At the very least they’re going to try to kidnap him. At the very worst… he doesn’t want to think about what could happen if this goes as badly as he’s worried about it going. 

…But taken at face value, it’s not worse than anything he’s had to deal with since he stood at the heart of STAR Labs and watched it crash and burn, is it?

“No,” he says firmly. This is just like dealing with everyone else who’s tried to get him on their side. They’re just being a little more forceful about it. Maybe that means they’re smart enough to know he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing. Or it means they’re stupid enough that they don’t realize what he’s potentially capable of. He clenches his fists, just like he did while sitting in the back of that van. “Let go of me.”

Lisa’s grip only tightens, and now her friend is grabbing onto his other arm, too. She hasn’t stopped fucking smiling. Like this is all a game or a joke. “No, I don’t think I will.”

Cisco was tired when he was forced into that car. He was tired when he told ARGUS to go fuck themselves before walking to work like everything was fine and googling them based only off their logo and habit of temporarily abducting engineers to offer them shady jobs. He was tired before that, when people kept breaking into his house or his work for some stupid reason.

Now, though?

Now, Cisco’s kinda fucking pissed.

Something must change on his face, because Lisa’s smile finally drops as she realizes she could’ve _sworn_ his eyes had been brown, and Cisco feels something wet and sticky inside his nose and on his upper lip.

“I _said—”_

Something surges up inside him under his skin. It’s like a wave crashing around him, deep blue and cold and endless and capable of swallowing him. 

He’s reminded, suddenly, of being a kid and going back to Puerto Rico and visiting the studio of his cousin who blew glass, watching the heat mold the molten material from the inside out. His cousin had told him that if he pushed too hard, the glass would break, but if he was careful, he’d be able to make something beautiful. Something he’d never make if he didn’t push at all, _see, mijita?_

So Cisco pushes.

“—let _go!”_

It’s like the blast he made when the weird person in yellow had shown up in his apartment, except it pushes from _all_ of him, not just his hand. Like blowing glass. Or a bubble rising until it pops. It expands outward and _throws_ Lisa and her friend off him. It also destroys a parking meter and shatters the windows of the building next to him and causes a car alarm to be set off from somewhere nearby.

That shrill beeping specifically is what really calls Cisco back to reality. He forces his hands to relax and tries to breathe through the blood in his nose, dripping onto his lip. He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s okay even though he did _that_ to the street around him and to two people, which makes his heart clench anxiously even _if_ they were trying to hurt him and he was only protecting himself.

He sees Lisa scramble to her feet and _run._ It makes the nervous part of him even more anxious when he realizes she’s running from _him._ He doesn’t want to be the kind of person who scares people. All the anger is still running through his veins, yes, but the adrenaline is starting to trickle out of him, leaving worry in its place because even if he was just doing what he had to do to keep himself safe he doesn’t… 

He doesn’t want to be that kind of person. The kind other people run from. He doesn’t want to be the kind of person who _would_ join a “Brotherhood of Evil.” Who’d go to work for Lex Luthor or Maxwell Lord or ARGUS. He doesn’t want to be that person.

Cisco turns to look for Lisa’s friend as slowly as he can because moving any faster sends a throb of pain through his skull, and finds him standing, fingers reaching for something tucked under his shirt, and looking at something _just_ over Cisco’s shoulder.

Cisco’s ears pop and he smells ozone only a fraction of a second before a streak of living lightning rushes past him and whisks “Mick” away. He turns around just to make sure Lisa’s really gone. That they’re _both_ really gone, because there’s a high chance he didn’t really see… 

He throws up a few times and goes home, still shaking and wondering if he should bother calling in sick for work considering he's already late.

* * *

Later that day, Cisco sits on the roof of his apartment building. The chilly night air of the Central City summer bites through the jacket he’s wearing. He braces his chin against his hand and rests his elbow on the right knee of his crossed legs and waits. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for. But he knows it’s coming.

His watch clicks to half-past-ten just as he feels that now-familiar pressure at the back of his skull and smells burnt rubber.

The Flash skids to a halt on the roof in front of him, throwing up sparks in his wake.

It’s dark, but Cisco’s eyes are adjusted, even with the too-bright flickers of yellow-orange tossed up behind the guy when he runs. He’s dressed _exactly_ as he was described, right down to the pale accented lines of lightning running up his calves. Cisco can’t see his face in the dark aside from the line of his jaw and a little glimmer of the sclera of his eyes. It’s enough to know.

“You’re the Flash,” Cisco breathes, still somewhat dumbfounded despite how much he was anticipating this. He knows it sounds stupid. But it’s _true,_ isn’t it? This is the _Flash,_ or at least it is if that’s actually what this guy wants to be called.

“Are you okay?” The Flash(!) asks, and Cisco is immediately grateful they aren’t doing what the man in yellow did when he showed up in his apartment for no reason that threw his voice in a washing machine along with a bunch of bricks. He sounds like a normal guy. “...Were you waiting for me?”

Cisco nods even if he doesn’t know if the Flash can see it in the dark. Though his eyes can probably adjust at hyper-speed, can’t they? Oh, he’d _love_ to know more about that… not in a weird way. In a science way. There must be so much about him that’s _different._ (Cisco feels a little sick for thinking that. That’s how people have thought about _him._ Some part of him knew General Eiling’s intentions fell more in line with _that_ than with giving him a job offer.) He shakes his head to clear it and gets to his feet. “I knew you were coming. I’m… I’m okay, mostly. What did you do with that guy—his name is Mick, right?”

“Mick Rory. He’s who I was after. He and his buddy broke out of prison a little while ago, and I’d been trying to track him ever since. I brought him to the precinct downtown. I have an arrangement with a couple detectives there,” the Flash explains. “Are you _sure_ you’re okay? I saw them grab you.”

“Yeah, this… isn’t the first time something like that has happened.” Cisco runs his hand through his hair. He needs a haircut. _It just hasn’t really happened without also giving me a seizure, so at least the meds are working!_ That’s too personal to say aloud. “So. Um. How long have you been working with STAR Labs?”

The Flash jumps and then skitters backward. “How did you know—I mean—I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t work for anyone.”

Cisco points at him. Well, not really at _him._ More at the suit he’s wearing. “I made that.”

He’d suspected since the first pictures of the Flash were released on that one blog. It’d looked familiar, but with enough additions that he hadn’t dwelled on it. Now that he was getting a closer look, it was obvious, even in the terrible lighting and with some modifications that obscured some of the quality of his original work. Cisco didn’t just _forget_ the things he’d made. They were his babies. He knew them inside and out. Completely and totally. Even if they were worn by vigilantes and not firefighters.

The Flash deflates. “...Oh.”

“...Caitlin’s still there, right?” Cisco swallows. The crush of guilt he feels at the mere thought of her and how he destroyed the best thing in her life almost chokes him. “How is she? Is she okay? I—I left after the explosion. We were friends for awhile.”

“Caitlin’s good,” the Flash says. He hasn’t come closer again. “She’s still dealing with some stuff. But she’s good. I think she’s better than she’s been in a long time.” He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck and Cisco presses his lips together so he won’t smile. All the things written about him have suggested an air of confidence. This guy doesn’t seem confident about anything. “I bet she misses you.”

Cisco can’t stop himself from making a small bitter laughing sound. Caitlin doesn’t miss him. Caitlin probably wishes he was dead. “No. She doesn’t. I wasn't—I should have said. We weren’t friends when I left.”

The Flash winces. “So… working at STAR Labs when the particle accelerator blew… is that how you got your powers? Before you quit?”

That startles Cisco a little. Not that the Flash _knows_ about his powers, because there’s no way he didn’t notice them. That he’s suddenly thinking about them as powers in the first place. It’s only been by accident before. Like a guilty pleasure or a habit he’s trying to break. A brief thought of _“I’m glad I’m not the only one with powers”_ or _“these powers have really been killing me lately.”_

It’s kind of nice to label them as something relatively positive. To associate them with something other than the physical strain they constantly seem to be causing him, even if he’s taken the seizures mostly out of the equation.

It also makes him realize that _yeah,_ it couldn’t just be a coincidence that these abilities manifested almost immediately after the explosion. There’s no way that was correlation without causation. What else could it have been? He hasn’t felt like this his whole life. It’s _new._

“Yeah,” he answers when he realizes the Flash is still waiting for a response. “That’s how. Or at least I assume that’s how.”

They fall into an awkward silence, both looking each other up and down. Cisco just likes seeing his handiwork in action, even in the dark and from a distance. The Flash seems to actually be contemplating something, mouth set into a line Cisco can’t see.

Before it can stretch on too long, the Flash moves back across the roof until he’s more in front of Cisco again. “If you want to learn how to use your powers to help people… I could help you with that.”

He expectantly holds out his hand to him. Cisco looks at it and slowly reaches out too, just enough to brush the tips of their fingers together. A jolt of static runs through his whole body like accidentally touching an electric fence, making him taste metal at the back of his mouth and—

_“We’ll find each other, always. The universe—”_

_“—I’m Cisco Ramon, this is Caitlin—”_

_“—if I start doing all this crazy stuff Reverb was doing, then what if this is how I become—”_

_“—I’m just saying. Some things aren’t adding up about Wells—”_

_“—sometimes I feel like if I believe in something hard enough, that’ll make it real—”_

_“—until_ you _created Flashpoint. Until_ you _did this—”_

_“—he gave me this power, but everything he did was evil. That’s what scares me—”_

_“—I didn’t do it to save the city. I did it because it gave me an excuse to bring him back. I did it because I miss my friend.”_

Cisco smiles and takes the Flash's—Barry's, but he doesn't need to tell him he knows his real name now—hand more firmly to shake it. There’s no blood on his face. No pain in his head. No corrupt businessman or government agency or Brotherhood of Evil trying to get him on their side for their own selfish gain. 

“Yeah,” he says honestly, feeling lighter than he has in a long time. “I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hold the idea of Cisco primarily designing assistive tech very close to my heart. Every time we don't see him onscreen on the Flash he's not helping solve their crisis of the week, he's actually laying out some blueprints for an awesome chair or some sick noise-cancelling headphones.
> 
> **The villains featured here (not in order of appearance) are:**  
>  _-Neron  
>  -Lex Luthor  
> -Maxwell Lord  
> -Noah Kuttler/The Calculator  
> -The Brotherhood of Evil (collective, currently just The Brain and Mallah)  
> -Eric Morden/Mr. Nobody  
> -The Rogues (collective, though only Lisa and Mick have a presence)  
> -Eobard Thawne/The Reverse Flash  
> -General Eiling  
> -Amanda Waller/ARGUS  
> -Jonathan Dubrovny/Mr. 103/Mr. 104/etc (here on technicality only since he's just Cisco's coworker)_
> 
> I tried to put them in an order that would make a kind of sense (i.e. Neron showing up first because he's got his finger on the pulse of desperation, Mr. Nobody popping up after the Brotherhood of Evil because he's like "this guy told the Brotherhood to fuck off _and_ he can do weird shit? I fucking LOVE him," Max grabbing at Luthor's leftovers, etc), and I really hope I pulled it off even with the skewed timeline.
> 
> I'm @augustheart on tumblr.


End file.
